Jas 4:1-6 NIV  What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don\’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  (2)  You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.  (3)  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  (4)  You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  (5)  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?  (6)  But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

• Does James indicate that some of us don’t have fights and quarrels – in a way does he imply “if there may be fights and quarrels”…?  What does that reveal to you?
• Is this an issue of just the early church, or is it apparently just on issue of the church of today?
• Doe you think James is referring to only Christians or is he considering the broader scope of humanity?  (find scripture that supports your answer)
• What is James’ proposing as the root of fights and quarrels?  Do you agree?
• What is the ultimate result of the various conditions proposed by James in verses 2 and 3.
• What are the various ways that James highlights for producing these desires?
• What word does James use in describing the people?  What characteristics come to mind when you think of such people?
• Is there any middle road for James between living in the world and loving God? Do you agree?  What does that mean to you and your relationship with the world?
• Verse 5 is renowned for being difficult to translate and understand.  What do you think it means?

Verse 6 – the Greek word translated here as “opposed” also means “to do battle against.”  What does that mean to you that God does battle with the proud.  Do you see that in your life and in the life of those around you?

• Proverbs 3:34  What do you think of when you imagine someone who is proud and someone who is humble?

Jas 4:7-12 NASB  Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  (8)  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  (9)  Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.  (10)  Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.  (11)  Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.  (12)  There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

• What kind of life do you imagine in verses 7-8?
• What kind of life do you imagine in verse 9?  Why do you think James desire mourning and weeping and gloom?
• Compare verse 10 with verse 6 – what aspect of Grace do you see in this verse that God grants the humble?
• What is the consequence of judging another?  What are you doing if you judge another person?  The word translated here for judge is krino which means to distinguish between good and evil.

Jas 4:13-17 NASB  Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”  (14)  Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.  (15)  Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”  (16)  But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.  (17)  Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

• How does James illustrate a very common thing as an example of living in pride?  What do you think about this?
• What is sin?  Is it sin if someone does a wrong and doesn’t know it is wrong?

How can you apply James’ teachings in your life?

What new trait of God did you see in these verses?